Parents and Today’s School System
Feb 2nd, 2009 by Patrick Valtin
Today, American schools spend a combined $1 billion a year on psychologists who work full-time to diagnose students. Annually, $15 billion has been spent in the U.S. on the diagnosis, treatment and study of psychiatry’s so-called disorders.
What follows are 10 reasons to sound the alarm about psychiatry in schools:
1. An estimated 9 million U.S. schoolchildren take psychiatric drugs today. This number represents a greater than 700 percent increase in the last decade.
2. Psychiatrists cannot document one positive, long-term effect of these drugs on learning, academic performance or social behavior.
3. Parents and schools are inundated* with incomplete, misleading and false information about psychiatric diagnoses and psychiatric drugs. The psychiatric diagnoses for which these drugs are prescribed, including Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), have not been scientifically validated as real diseases.
4. With psychiatrists at the marketing forefront, 90 percent of the world’s methylphenidate** production is consumed in the United States - mostly by schoolchildren.
5. School personnel pressure parents to have their children evaluated and placed on psychiatric drugs. Lawmakers must clarify that this is illegal; parents should know that such psychiatric coercion should be barred from their children’s schools.
6. Psychiatric drugs harm young bodies, including cardiovascular, endocrine, respiratory and central nervous systems.
7. Psychiatric drugs cause death. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) adverse reaction report data include 186 methylphenidate-related deaths during the 1990s, mostly cardiovascular-related. These voluntary FDA reports represent only a fraction (experts estimate between 1 and 10 percent) of the actual incidents.
8. Psychiatric drugs are consistently linked to violence in the schools. Research shows that aggressive and injurious behavior toward self or others can result from the drugs while taking them or during withdrawal.
9. Psychiatric drugs increase the risk of suicide, self-mutilation and other forms of violence. For such reasons, one widely prescribed antidepressant, paroxetine, has been banned by the state of Connecticut for prescription to anyone under the age of 18, and the government of the United Kingdom has banned all but one of the SSRIs*** for children under 18. Canada and Ireland have warned doctors not to prescribe paroxetine to children. Additionally, as reported on July 15, 2003, in the Toronto Star, paroxetine’s manufacturer admitted in a statement today that studies it conducted showed the drug also didn’t appear to work in children who were taking it. In fact, authorities cited harmful outcomes from child use, including self-harm and suicidal behavior.
10. Resources are wasted on biopsychiatric methods to manipulate behavior, diverting attention and resources from ways to meet children’s genuine educational needs. Proven methods do exist to help children with learning challenges. (www.ADHD-report.com /Bob Collier/03-15-03)
* Inundated: To overwhelm.
** Methylphenidate (MPH) is a prescription stimulant commonly used to treat Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.
*** Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) are a class of antidepressants used in the treatment of depression, anxiety disorders, and some personality disorders. (wikipedia.org)
The following is a shocking compilations of videos exposing what those drugs do to a person, as well as his/her family. This is to give you some ideas on how parents that have been asked to put their children on antidepressants, later endure the consequences.